Miscellany: Battler

In Pittsburgh, 30 years ago, a strapping
battler named James McCoy stood up to John L. Sullivan and endured,
for a few rounds, the rataplan of fists as hard and heavy as
stove-lids. John L. Sullivan is dead. Battler McCoy is an old man. Last
week he was shuffling home from work through a lonely park when he was
set upon by three weasel-faced fellowsmen who, in soggy
swaddling-clothes, were mewing for their mothers when McCoy was trading
cuffs with the hardest hitter who ever put on a glovethin rogues
whom, in...